UPDATE and why I went outside again this morning.

UPDATE:

Yesterday evening the outer dressings came off my two incisions without any trouble. Hooray! Woke up at 1:45 a.m. and finally got back to sleep around 2:30 a.m. Slept until 6:15 a.m. which means I got some rest. I ate breakfast after I woke up the second time. Still no nausea or taste alterations. The peripheral neuropathy continues to get better--thank goodness. When it does happen, it's mostly in my feet. Since I need to build up my stamina before Chemo Round Two, I walked outside in the shade yesterday for a total of 4583 steps, according to the Health app on my iPhone 6 Plus. That's four times my daily average. Hooray! This morning when I went outside, the skies were overcast, so I was able to walk in my neighborhood and made it 1194 steps in about 20 minutes. I'll be back outside in the shade until much later today because the sun has come out. I am blessed to live where I do, to have the opportunities during my recovery. Thank you for your continued prayers, love and concern.



Yesterday when I walked outside on the south side of the building in the shade, I made it to the corner of my building and saw the beautiful sunshine in the banana tree in the southern end of the front yard. The two-story Albertina Kerr building across the street makes great early morning shade.



I continued toward the front steps and took this photo at a different angle from all the others I've taken of our front sidewalk and entrance.



Here's the sunshine that I needed to avoid. Isn't it beautiful?



To me, the proximity of these roses and the difference in the age of their blooms makes for a great photo. What do you think, please?

Taking steps, out and about inside my building - I live in a studio which is absolutely perfect for me, space-wise and location-wise.

I'm standing on the level of my front door, around the corner from it--this loop in the hallway is 67 of my steps around. I could take the steps down to the vestibule seen through that closed door or up to the second floor landing. I knew yesterday that it's time to take a walk up those stairs. Right at my fingertips, well, at my feet, the perfect way to get moving more and more on this road to recovery from surgery a week ago yesterday! To put some variety in my work out, complete with the safety of a handrail.



Ever curious, I decided to find online a diagram of wooden staircase parts so that I would know the exact name of what my hand grasped, of where my feet landed. I like a sturdy handrail connected to well-installed balusters. To tell you the truth, my all-time-fantasy hiking trail in the outdoors would come with just such a set up. I believe that my fear of heights would be negated as I held onto such a handrail.



Here's a direct look up the eleven treads in this riser, counting the landing at the top as eleven. Is that the way you count, officially as a carpenter? It's how I count as a walker.



At the top I turned left, looked out through the screen and took this photo. You can see the tile roof on the building's entrance, there to the right. The windows on the lower level on the left are mine! I have a total of eight, four in each room.



The first three you see are part of the four that make up the bonus room's outer wall--my twin bed, a narrow storage unit; a waist-high,long, narrow bookcase; and a chest of drawers are in there, too. This is a photo I took of the bonus room that first day, checking out the apartment. FYI, that silver vehicle across the street is the one whose alarm went off yesterday from approximately 3:30 p.m. until 5:09 p.m. when it ceased. Hallelujah!



There is an extra-wide opening with no door straight across from my bed which opens into my kitchen. I've gotten used to sleeping through the occasional refrigerator gurgle and/or electronic whir. Here you are looking through that opening and out the windows. You can see the building's entrance and the gutter. When we get a lot of rain, it sounds like I'm sleeping behind a waterfall. I love it!



In that photo taken from the upstairs landing, the one window you see at the start of the bow-window area is the first of the four in the living room. There is a bit of wall in between first one and the center two. That bit of wall is repeated between those center two and the fourth one at the opposite end of the bow. These windows grabbed hold of me when I first walked through the apartment's front door, sunshine streaming onto the hardwood floors. This is a photo of the center two windows and the fourth one--I took it on that same day when I first saw what turned out to be my new home.

GOOD NEWS UPDATE - Sights I've seen for years, when I use the stairway to the laundry room and/or the building's side door

In order to pay constant, close attention to the 10 steps down and the 10 steps up, I count each step in my mind as I grasp the handrail. So, for years and years, I've noticed the lower particular worn spot in the treads of one of the steps closer to the bottom. To me, it looks like a side view of the Yellow Submarine of The Beatles' fame. I called it to Lamont's attention yesterday when we did a load of laundry; he agreed! What say you?

Plus, to me the one above it looks a bit like an upside down game fish breaking water. Lamont even said that without my mentioning it!

Y'all may think I'm crazy for seeing such sights in worn treads, but I'm of a mind that the more one enjoys, interprets, notices one's surroundings, the more engaged in life one is which surely makes for a huge plus.

Thanks again for all of the prayers, love and concern. More news after the doctor appointment at 8 a.m. Portland time, Friday, May 1.



Here's the entire stairwell.

UPDATE: Great news! Dr. Steiner says that the cancer I have is endometrial adenocarcinoma. It is grade one of three it is minimal invasion at a 1 mm focal invasion in the endometrium. She has recommended no additional treatment, follow up with an exam every three months for two years, then every six months until five years and then annually. She has ordered a baseline study, a CT of the chest, abdomen and pelvis. She wants to see if the lymph node area shows anything to her on the CT scan. She did look at the lymph nodes some during my hysterectomy last Friday and found nothing out of the ordinary with that look. There was no involvement with the tubes or the ovaries there was no identified vascular invasion to the lymph node area. In other words, this is exactly what we have all been praying to hear. Thank you! Thank you!

What we experienced walking to the Earl's Court tube station Tuesday morning, October 7. England Scotland Heritage Tour, 2014, from Trafalgar

Breakfast at the hotel. We made the decision to walk to Earl's Court tube station which would allow us to take a single line to Covent Garden, our destination for the day. Well, until I would have to split off in order to meet my friend Richard Taylor for our exciting time at the Royal Courts of Justice on The Strand. The whole walk, we kept saying, "Look at this sunshine. These blue skies. I am so glad we decided to walk because we got to see this lovely street." (I found Eardley Crescent on Google Maps. It's just as pretty to take that walk with the Google Street View man since Google shot it on a sunny day.) It had been pouring rain the day before when we rode in from Heathrow and still drizzling off and on when we went to visit Camden Market and then back to the hotel. Sunshine, on our second and last free day in London--brilliant!



I dare you to walk by this entrance and not take a photo. Picturesque and appealing are just two words that come to mind when I look at my own photo of it.



These steps fascinated me. I immediately asked Juliet to stand at the top for a photo, completely forgetting that someone inside might open the door at any moment. Thankfully that didn't happen because I got to take this pretty photo of her! I like how her sweater and slacks match the colors on the house, as does her purse. In fact, the angle of her bag matches the angle of the handrail. Serendipity! Oh, would you be able to walk up and down that design on a daily basis? I probably could without my motion sickness bracelets, once my brain was used to having it at my feet.



Purple flowers on the window sill.



Red flowers on the window sill of a house a few steps away from the one with the purple flowers.



Now, that's a fancy way to display your address, isn't it? Right there on the pillar beside your front door. But it was the unique window that caught my eye--I didn't notice the address until I had uploaded the photo to Flickr.



We turned left onto Warwick Road and could see the Earl's Court tube station down the block. See the white rectangular sign with the red circle that has a blue line through it? The blue line reads Underground in white letters. That marks the entrance to the station. Guess what? On the Google Map of that tube station, the sign in my photography had not yet been installed. I'm certainly glad it was there when we needed to see it! The locked bicycles caught my eye next. I ended up taking several photos of bicycles locked up like these in several locations on the tour. I don't remember seeing any bicycles on the underground trains, nor do I remember seeing any place to hang a bicycle by its front wheel like we have on the MAX Light Rail trains in Portland. I cannot imagine holding onto a bicycle on those multi-story escalators in many of the tube stations. More on those in tomorrow's post.

What steps will I take in 2014?

The sign says: Caution. Uneven steps. Slippery when wet. Sounds like life, sometimes.

One key for me is to know when to take hold of the handrail so that I can accomplish my goal, as well as how to gain strength and confidence and skill so that when the opportunity presents itself to take those steps without the handrail, I shall be ready.

Happy New Year, y'all! I took this photo at the Portland Japanese Garden on Sunday, December 15, 2013. See you next year!

Light and shadow, stripes and swirls, lines--seen at Pioneer Courthouse Square

Taken a few seconds apart as I walked from the top of the square to the bottom. Naturally the cat and its beautiful markings caught my eye. The time is about 6:25 p.m., thus the waning sun on the bricks.

There's steps, and then there's steps.

The front steps on a nearby house on NW Everett, during the snow marathon in 2008-2009. I took this photo on December 23, 2008, mainly because it looked like someone had made a snow angel in the snow packed onto the steps. Ever since we'd moved into our apartment in October, 2006, I had figured the house was vacant. This photo certainly supports that premise. All nearby steps had been cleared, repeatedly, as we had days and days of snowfall.


Maybe things are looking up for the house. I took this photo on May 8, 2010, a few days after I walked by on my way to the bus and noticed a man working on the steps. The right side front door was open. I got a glimpse of the stairs to the second floor. Now I'm totally curious as to what is going on with the house. Extremely hopeful, too.